End-dump trucks have a dump body with a pair of side walls interconnected by a floor that encloses a volume for receiving payload. The payload is often particulate material such as stone, asphalt, gravel, sand, and the like. The dump body has a closed front end and an open rear discharge, and usually a pivoting tailgate that closes the discharge end of the dump body during transport.
The front end of the dump body is raised to flow the material along the floor and out the discharge end of the dump body. The floor and side walls define a U-shaped chute to guide the flow of discharged material.
Particulate material is often dumped into a hopper of a distribution apparatus such as a self-powered asphalt spreader or a stone spreader that is attached to the rear of the truck. Sometimes the material will fall short of the hopper when the bed is initially being raised, with material falling onto the ground. This wastes material and requires cleanup.
To reduce the chances of the material missing the hopper, an auxiliary metal chute is sometimes added to the discharge end of the truck body to provide additional support for the material during discharge. These chutes may be jury-rigged from scrap metal or may be more of more sophisticated construction, such as the movable chute disclosed in Ozanich U.S. Pat. No. 7,731,297.
Raising the dump body, however, often causes the auxiliary chute to strike the distribution apparatus, causing damage to the apparatus or to the chute.
Thus there is a need for providing an improved chute assembly for mounting on the discharge end of the dump body of an end-dump truck. The improved chute assembly should reduce the risk of damage to the distribution apparatus or to the chute assembly itself, and should be easily removable to facilitate attachment of other devices, such as salt spreaders, to the end of the dump body.